[dndln]

Current events such as the US-China trade war, rising inequality between the haves and have-nots, the upcoming financial crisis, the increasing military strength of China (with "military-civil fusion") and its emergence as a superpower, decreasing respect for the rule of law from politicians, and the polarisation between the left and nationalist right parties strongly parallel the buildup in the 1930s preceding World War II.

You say it would be corrosive to your soul to optimise death of currently living human beings. However, if those humans were trying to wipe out your mother, father, friends, loved ones, children and perhaps the rest of the world, by optimising their death you would be optimising the chance of the human race to survive. From that perspective, you would not delight in killing, but delight in preserving the peace and quiet which could only be achieved by cutting out the cancerous tumor which threatens the whole body of humanity.

Then again, who's the cancerous tumor here - the West or the East?

[olau]

Perhaps it would help if we stopped dubbing other people as cancerous tumors?

I was reading about the decisions behind the nuclear bombings of Japanese cities near the end of WWII.

I wonder how it felt being a physicist that contributed to the Manhattan Project after those droppings.

By the way, the Wikipedia pages are in interesting study in how to downplay certain... aspects.